The IMAGE beamline is specifically designed for full-field hard X-ray imaging applications in materials and life sciences. The beamline prioritizes systematic in situ and operando X-ray imaging studies, along with high throughput applications (necessary for biometrics investigations in biology and paleontology) with a spatial resolution up to 1 μm. The first experimental hutch is devoted to the conduction of experiments, requiring the incorporation of specialized devices like dedicated sample environments and test chambers. The second experimental hutch houses the main experimental stations of the beamline: the tomography and the laminography stations.

The main focus of the beamline is radiographic and tomographic imaging, both in absorption mode and in phase-contrast mode, with a resolution range from approximately 40 µm (projection radiography and tomography) down to 1 µm, covering the following fields:

• materials research: facilities for in situ and operando characterization of electronic materials, functional materials, microsystems devices, batteries and multi-phase fluidics
• Morphological X-ray imaging of small organisms; cell and tissue morphodynamics and organogenesis, in toto extant and fossil organisms down to organ and tissue level 

The beamline implements various imaging modes including:

• Contrast modes: absorption, refraction, diffraction, and fluorescence,
• Imaging modes: radiography and microdiffraction imaging, 3D tomography and laminography

With these modes, a variety of complementary techniques are accessible, such as:

• White beam fast radiography and tomography in absorption contrast (distribution of the attenuation coefficients in 2D and 3D),
• Propagation-based phase contrast imaging for low-Z and weakly absorbing materials, yielding the refractive index distribution, Element-specific imaging at absorption edges for mapping the spatial distribution of specific elements,
• Tomography and laminography for 3D imaging of objects in absorption and phase contrast to determine the 3D distribution of the linear attenuation coefficient or the refractive index

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